Army of Me
by Anath de Malfoy
Summary: Walden Macnair's development from psycho kid to the Dark Lord's executioner. Violence.


Title: Army of Me  
  
Author: Anath de Malfoy  
  
Rating: R for violence  
  
Pairings: None. There's blood lust here, but no smut.  
  
Summary: Snippets from the life of Walden Macnair - a concise history of a man and his bloody trade...  
  
Possible Spoilers: Books 1-5  
  
Warnings: Murder, torture, self-mutilation, possible AU, and horror themes  
  
Disclaimer: All characters and profits belong to J.K Rowling. I just borrow the characters sometimes.  
  
A/N: This little fic is named for the song "Army of Me" by Chimaira, from the "Freddy vs Jason" soundtrack. Because one good blood-bath deserves another...  
  
When Walden Macnair was a boy, he would always de-gnome the garden himself. Although his family had sufficient wealth to hire any number of groundskeepers to tackle the pests, Walden insisted that only he be permitted to rid the vast grounds of annoying little gnomes.   
  
Armed with a hatchet, a stout machete, and an impressive array of finely honed knives, he would stalk his prey with an icy focus more intense than that of any hunter. Merely casting the horrid creatures over the fence was not an option for Walden. No, the moment he laid his hands on the leathery little beasts, he would set about skinning and dismembering them. He would kill some swiftly, and others with a slow deliberation, drawing out their agony for as long as possible, smiling with a strange dark satisfaction as they shrieked and bled.  
  
His mother would watch him from the window, her cold eyes shining with a fierce pride in her powerful, strapping son. So merciless and single-minded at such a young age... this cruel, ferocious streak was a sure sign that Walden would be bested by no one, and would pledge allegiance only to the worthiest.  
  
School, however, would prove a less tolerant environment than home for Walden's proclivities. When the young Macnair was old enough to go to Hogwarts, he soon found out that smuggling in blades or purloining them from among the gardening tools resulted in detentions and points lost for his house, Slytherin. Therefore, he applied himself to his magical studies and soon became adept at Transfiguration. Using spells to transform a stick, a belt, a Quidditch Beater's bat, or anything else he wished into a long, razor-sharp knife, he could delight for hours in the blade's keen edge and cold metallic sheen.   
  
His eyes transfixed by the weapon's beauty, Walden's mind would drift into fantasies of using it to slice and mutilate human flesh. Imagining a bound and helpless victim pleading and struggling before him, Walden would surreptitiously slide the blade into his own skin, hissing at the pain and feeling the hot blood spill. He cared not that he was hurting and scarring himself with this self-torture. What mattered was his ever-increasing skill with knives, the almost transcendent harmony of hand and blade he sought to create. He derived no physical pleasure from the act of cutting his own flesh - this was practice, pure and simple.  
  
Madam Pomfrey would often cast a suspicious glance at Walden when he showed up at the school hospital wing for treatment, the agony of the cuts and the multiplicity of the scars having become too much for his young body to bear. She would frown in disbelief when Walden informed her that the marks were caused by Quidditch injuries or misdirected spells in class, but she refrained from questioning the boy. She seemed afraid of him, Walden noted with satisfaction. It was fitting that people should be afraid of Walden Macnair...  
  
Walden often had thoughts of what it would be like to lure a fellow student - some contemptible Mudblood, of course, who would deserve to be treated thus - into a secluded corner of the school and carve his or her body up even more ruthlessly than he assailed his own. But he knew that such fantasies would be impossible to fulfill. He did not yet have sufficient skill with healing or memory charms, and if he were caught, it would mean expulsion from Hogwarts or possibly worse. So Walden cut himself, and he dreamed of being able to hunt and kill despicable Muggles and Mudbloods as he had once done with garden gnomes. Occasionally he would be able to sneak out to the Forbidden Forest and find some small animal to brutally hack to death. But opportunities for this were rare, so Walden mostly remained his own test subject. He grew to manhood more able at wielding a blade than a wand, but he cared not. Magic was all very well and good, but was no substitute for the reliability and precision of a sharp-edged weapon.  
  
Everything changed - and for the better - with the rise of the Dark Lord Voldemort.  
  
When Walden joined the Death Eaters, his skills were suddenly thrust out into the open; he was now the Dark Lord's executioner, respected and valued by his fellows. Dressed in dragon-leather clothes and boots beneath his Death Eater robes, Walden now had a sturdy and fearsome axe to wield, its glinting, vicious blade sharper than a viper's tooth. It sliced keenly and neatly through the necks of his victims, Muggles and Mudbloods who deserved death simply for existing, pure-blood wizards and witches and magical beings who had incurred the Dark Lord's wrath, fellow Death Eaters who had turned traitor and gone over to the other side. It was solid, satisfying work, worthy of Walden's supreme dexterity. No longer did he have to bother with inflicting little cuts here and there, playing torture games with himself or others. Voldemort had other followers to occupy the lesser role of torturer. Walden's role consisted solely of the sublime pinnacle of blade-work, the kill. He seemed to many to be like a one-man army, mighty and invulnerable, the angel of death personified as he raised his axe.  
  
The first defeat of Voldemort was not as bitter for Walden as it was for many of the other Death Eaters. He was cleared of all charges by the Ministry of Magic, and escaped Azkaban, where so many of his comrades had been sent. And the Ministry even found a use for Walden's proficiency with an axe. He was given a job with the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, beheading vicious beasts who had injured witches or wizards or who had otherwise proved too unsafe to handle. It was a thrill to be able to take the lives of such ferocious brutes, but Walden missed the feeling of righteous satisfaction that swept over him when he struck off the head of a traitor or a being of impure blood.  
  
On the day when Walden felt the Dark Mark on his arm burn once again, his heart leapt with a surge of malevolent joy. Voldemort had returned, and as he stood in the circle with the other Death Eaters, he was relieved that the Dark Lord did not curse him as he had cursed Avery, or chide him as he did Lucius Malfoy. Indeed, Lord Voldemort promised Walden that he would soon have better victims than the beasts he had been killing for the Ministry. And ultimately he entrusted Walden with a secret mission. One which would forge a valuable alliance for the Dark side... he would have a companion on his journey, but Walden would be in charge.  
  
And it was on this mission that the nature of his passion for the kill would grow and change forever.  
  
Walden's delight in blades and death had always been a solitary pleasure; there were others among the Death Eaters who called themselves his friends, but they never joined him in his favourite pursuits; neither did they glory as much in the shedding of blood as he did. It was a novel pastime, therefore, to stand before the towering figure in front of him, describing the wondrous things that could be accomplished with a well-sharpened blade, seeing a maniacal gleam dawn in the cold eyes of his new ally.  
  
Golgomath, Gurg of the Giants, was used to bludgeoning his victims or tearing them to pieces with his bare hands. Through the darkly accomplished wizard named Walden Macnair, he would soon learn new ways to enjoy the blood-rousing sport that was taking life.  
  
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  
  
~ Fin. 


End file.
